Unfailing Love Means an Unstoppable Life

This is the fourth in a series we are calling “Uprising –Part II.” We discover that a rebellion is taking place against the suffering created by broken masculinity. This article — and the others that follow — takes us on a journey into the broken male culture, showing us that God is our Father and He wants us to return home to His family, and like any loving Father, He expects His sons to behave accordingly. Read Part One, Part Two, and Part Three of the Uprising II series.

We’ve been taking a look at Jeremiah 4. You know He’s talking to men when He’s talking about renewal and revival, and He says in Jeremiah 4:1: “Circumcise yourself to the Lord.” You don’t say that to woman.

Remember too that they are adults. Adult circumcision would be painful, but do you know what He is really saying? I want to cut your heart. Circumcise your hearts.

He’s talking about an inner transformation. You return to me, or you go on with your cultural expression of masculinity and validation, and then I’ll have to break out the wrath. It breaks out like a fire with no one to quench it.

We’ve all felt this way at some point, experienced the consequences of our choices of masculinity outside of Christ and inside of culture. When you read or watch a news story where some demented guy walks into a grocery store and starts firing a gun, or when you see somewhere in the world where sexual violence is used for a political purposes, or when you go to Cambodia and you see a culture that is a broken down male culture that accepts men having sex with eight and nine-year old girls.

Circumcision of our hearts: that is God’s mind on spiritual sonship. That’s where we have to go to cap the well of broken male culture that is seeping into all facets of the world.

What’s the model? It’s great to talk about God wanting to be your Father. It’s great to talk about an uprising of spiritual sonship, but what does it look like and what’s the process?

Grab your Bible and turn to Matthew 3:16-17.

I want you to see this in the life of Christ because it’s what God wants to do in your life. He already did with Jesus the very things he wants to do with you today. He can create the same results through you in your sphere of influence.

In these verses in Matthew, it says, “As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

This model shows the declaration of sonship and the acceptance of a father.

This is supposed to happen in your earthly family and in your spiritual family.

Jesus came to earth. He was an earthly son, but He was also the Son of God. If that is true for Jesus, it is true for every man because everything is by Him, for Him, through Him, and in Him. Jesus is God’s model of manhood.

In that declaration, there is inner security, inner stability, and inner maturity because Jesus knows who He is. He is the Son of God. He lives for an audience of one, not an audience of many.

What’s a demonstration of this guy who is inwardly stable, mature and secure? Turn to Mark 12:14.

It looks like this when they came to Him and said, “Teacher, we know that you are a man of integrity. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?”

Here’s a moment of masculinity where they’re putting a man of God under pressure. They want to trap Him. They want to get Him to compromise. They want to get Him to commit to culture instead of to His faith.

They say “teacher we know you are a man of integrity.” The first marker of a son who is secure and stable is that he’s undivided. That’s what integrity means. He’s not divided between culture and His faith. He’s solid.

“We know you are a man of integrity,” and then it says, “you aren’t swayed by men.” That’s really the issue isn’t it? The culture around us is holding out this version of what a man is and then we are being swayed in our identity to plant ourselves in that false brand of masculinity.

Jesus didn’t do that, and we don’t have to either. They have a brand over here, and you’re not buying that brand. You are outside of it. You rise above it. You transcend it, and “you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.”  

Not only does He rise above it and transcend the broken brand of masculinity, but He then lives out God’s purposes, and they respect that.

That’s a demonstration of this declaration and his acceptance as a son. His demonstration is fearless, counter cultural, secure and strong. 

Say this to yourself: “When I’m validated by God, I stop seeking validation by men.” We’ve got to own this, guys.

Hebrews 11 talks about how Moses, once he’s validated by God, stops seeking validation by men, specifically from people in authority. Let’s look at Hebrews 11:24-27.

“By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.”

Then we hit a key verse in 27: “By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw Him who is invisible.”

That’s a metaphor for us. We are to leave our own cultures’ broken masculinity just as Moses left acceptance by Pharaoh and a life of ease, comfort and convenience in Egyptian culture. He left that culture not fearing the king’s anger. He persevered because he saw Him who is invisible. 

Moses had this security, inner stability and strength, not as a son of Pharaoh, but as a son of God.

Psalm 21 talks about how unfailing love by the Lord makes a man unstoppable and unshakable. Psalm 21:7 says, “For the king trusts in the Lord; through the unfailing love of the Most High, he will not be shaken.”

Now I want you to put your name in that verse. Replace “the king” and “he” with your name. For “Kenny” trusts in the Lord; through the unfailing love of the Most High, “Kenny” will not be shaken.

Kenny will not be shaken! You will not be shaken! That’s how we study Scripture. What’s true for the men of God is true for you. Solid identity, secure masculinity; and unfailing love equals an unstoppable life.

When a man is secure, forgiven, and accepted with unfailing love from the One who matters most, acceptance produces an unstoppable life because we don’t consider other men and wonder why He made us. We are His passionate sons, sent on a mission. We are secure in our mission because we are secure in the unfailing love of God.  

I am glad for you today that we’re standing in the unfailing love of Jesus Christ. I’m glad that it happened the way it did, even though I would not want to be Him. That unfailing love occurred through the shedding of His blood, the willingness to sacrifice, on the part of the Father, and on the part of the Son, so that we could become sons of God.  

John 1:10-13 shows us exactly what to do. “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.” See, there was the mistake. It’s a battle for recognition. God sent the Son so you could become a son, if you just recognize Him.

“He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.” There again is a transactional point. Those who were His own didn’t receive Him.

Now, here’s a transition: “Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”

You were born once in an earthly way, and became a creation of God. Now God is calling you to become a son of God by being born of God.

Watch “Uprising –Part II,” where men’s expert and pastor Kenny Luck helps you to learn how God’s men are joining an uprising in the Church. 

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Kenny Luckis the founder of Every Man Ministries and the men’s pastor at Saddleback Church.  His 20th book – SLEEPING GIANT: No Movement of God without Men of God - is the proven blueprint for men’s ministries, and was recently released through B&H Publishing. Watch and read more of Kenny’s teaching here at EveryManMinistries.com. 

Follow Every Man Ministries now on Facebook, Twitter (@everymm,) and YouTube.

*This Article First Published 5/20/2013